A Texas judge has ordered that a brain-dead pregnant woman be removed from life support after her husband filed suit against a Fort Worth hospital for “cruel and obscene mutilation” of a dead body.

In a case that has captured national headlines and become a battleground for both sides of the abortion debate, state District Judge R.H. Wallace ordered John Peter Smith Hospital to remove the woman’s body from a ventilator by 5 p.m. Monday.

Marlise Munoz, 33, was 14 weeks pregnant when her husband, Erick Munoz, found her unconscious on the floor of their kitchen on Nov. 26, possibly due to a blood clot in one of her lungs.

Although doctors at the county-owned hospital later told the husband that his wife was brain dead and would never recover, the hospital chose to keep her body on life support against the family’s wishes, citing a Texas law that prohibits hospitals from suspending “life-sustaining treatment” on patients who are pregnant.

On Friday, lawyers for the husband argued in court that hospital officials had misread the law and said it did not apply to a corpse. They also told the judge that the now 22-week-old fetus was “distinctly abnormal.”

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